Alternamorphs
by Lebeau-Ishida
Summary: Roma, her brother Tai, and their friends Matt, Anthony, Sam, and Nancy (Matt and Anthony's mom) are the Animorphs. When a new kid who seems to have strange powers of his own arrives, they try to figure out if he can be trusted. Is the new kid a Controller
1. Default Chapter

Alternamorphs: Prologue

My name is Roma. No last name. I won't even tell you where I live. It's too dangerous, and besides, my brother would ream me out royally. Right before the Controllers broke down the door and dragged both us and our parents off to the Yeerk pool to make us Controllers.

I can just hear you saying, "Wait. Back up. What are Controllers? What's a Yeerk pool? For that matter, is there even such a thing as a Yeerk pool?"

Well, the answer is "yes". I should know. I've been there. And as for what it is, it's where the Controllers-Maybe I should explain what Controllers are.

A Controller is someone that has a Yeerk in his or her head. Yeerks are evil, parasitic slugs that crawl through your ear and flatten themselves against your brain. Then they take over your mind and your body. They control your every movement, everything you say. You can't fight back.

And the worst part is, no one would even know you were a Controller.

The Yeerk pool is where the Yeerks feed. It's their one great weakness.

Everything in my life used to be pretty normal.

Well, before my friends and I took a shortcut through an abandoned construction site one night while walking home from the arcade.

That night changed our lives forever. That construction site was where the five of us first met the Andalite prince Elfangor, who told us about the Yeerks and gave us our one weapon- the power to morph.

Now we fight the Yeerks, alongside Elfangor's little brother Ax.

The Yeerks don't know who we are. They think we're a bunch of renegade Andalites. They don't suspect that we're mostly just a bunch of human kids.

I say mostly, because Ax is an Andalite. He kinda looks like a blue-and-tan centaur with a scorpion tail, an extra pair of eyes, no mouth, and too many fingers. And also because another friend-Anthony- was trapped in morph. Not to mention that his mom, Nancy, also fights with us.

Anthony used to be a human boy with black hair and icy sapphire-blue eyes. Now he's a peregrine falcon with the mind of a human.

I guess I should explain about the morphing.

We can morph into any creature we touch. We acquire the animal's DNA just by touching it, and from then on, we can morph that animal any time we want. But there is a downside: We can't stay in morph more than two hours we'll be trapped in morph. That's what happened to Anthony. He morphed the peregrine and accidentally overstayed the time limit.

The other four are my best friend Sam, who has reddish-brown hair and black eyes, and who really loves to work with animals, Anthony's older brother Matt, a blue-eyed blond and also my twin's best friend, my twin brother Tai, who has wild brown hair and brown eyes, and Matt and Anthony's mom, Nancy.

Together, the seven of us- one Andalite, one Falcon, and five humans-fight. We don't have much of a choice. If we didn't fight, Earth would have already fallen to the Yeerks.

But we let that happen. We'll keep fighting. Until the Andalites come, as they said they would. Until the Yeerks are defeated.

You'd better hope we win.


	2. Chapter One

Alternamorphs: Chapter One

We've got a new guy in school. His name's Parker. He says he's originally from Gotham, and that he was in New York for a time.

But where he's from isn't important. The real question, since he don't exactly act normal, is: Is Parker a Controller? Or something else?

I know. I sound paranoid. But with the life I have now, I don't think I can be blamed. Do you?

Never mind. Anyway, Matt was the one who first noticed that Parker was a little strange. He told us about it at lunch.

"You know that new guy? Parker?"

"Yeah. So? What about him, Matt?" I asked. It was a normal day-well, for us, anyway-and we were all just kind of relaxing. To tell the truth, I was starting to get bored. I was almost hoping that something would happen.

"Well, he was acting kinda strange out in the halls."

_That_ got our attention. Tai had been leaning back in his chair, in the way that left only two legs on the floor. Now he put the chair back on all fours and leaned forward. "What do you mean, 'strange'?"

The rest of us leaned forward as well. "I mean strange. Like he had an extra sense or something."

O-kay. That _was_ a little weird. But…"Extra sense? What kind of extra sense?"

"Well, someone tripped and would have fallen on him, but he caught them like he knew it was gonna happen. And when we passed Chapman, he kind of…I don't know…acted like he was some kind of poisonous snake. Like he knew how dangerous he was. Chapman didn't notice, though, which is probably a good thing."

Tai nodded. "Yeah. I think it might be a good idea to find out what we can about Parker. You know, whether or not he's a Controller, if he really has an extra sense…the usual."

Sam spoke up. "Won't that be invading his privacy, not to mention probably illegal?"

"Yeah, it will be kinda like invading his privacy, Sam," I said, "but it won't be any worse than the invasion of privacy done by the Yeerks every time they make someone a Controller."

Sam nodded. She didn't like it, but she knew that checking up on Parker was a good idea.

It looked like we were going to go ahead and check out Parker, to make sure he was clean.

If he was, then maybe we could trust him. Maybe. It was just as likely that he was a Controller and we were all screwed.


	3. Chapter Two

Alternamorphs: Chapter Two

We all decided that Anthony would probably be the best one to follow Parker for the next three days. We briefly forgot about something, though: He's pretending to be my falcon that Sam gave me because he became too attached to humans. 

The point is, Anthony can't very well fly around town following Parker everywhere when he's supposed to be a domesticated falcon, right?

So Tai modified the plan a little: have me show Parker around town, with Anthony soaring above us for a while, then swooping down to perch on my shoulder, which happens to be his favorite perch.

This idea is guaranteed to keep the two of us busy all weekend. There's just no way you can cover all the points of interest in one day. Besides, if he's anything like Tai and Matt, he'll want to spend a lot of time at the arcade, anyway.

On Friday, just before school got out, I walked over to Parker and asked, "Hey, you're new, right?"

He picked up his backpack, slung it over one shoulder, and said, "Yeah. My name's Parker. What's yours?"

"Roma. My friend Matt told me about you."

"Tall, blond, annoying yet funny?"

I laughed. "Yep, that's him. Anyway, I was wondering, have you been able to explore around town yet?"

"Nope. I wish. This place looks like it'd be a lot of fun to explore."

"Well, if you'd like, I can show you around later today. And all weekend, too, since we won't be able to see everything today, anyway."

"Sure. That'd be great. Thanks, Roma." Then, "Uh, where and when should I meet you?"

"Okay, you know where the mall is, right?"

"Yeah."

"We'll meet there, at the food court. As for when, give me about two hours and I'll be there. Okay?"

"Yeah."

The bell rang, and everyone left and headed for their homes. Parker trotted after one of the buses, while I climbed onto my bus. By some freak chance, I ended up sitting between Matt and Tai. I had to listen to the tow of them yammer back and forth on several topics, ranging from the weather (I swear I'm not kidding) to their latest detention and how they hoped nothing came up while they served it.

When I got home, I ran up the stairs to my room, opened the door, dropped my stuff on my bed, went over to the window, and opened it. I'd let Anthony out after I'd fed him breakfast (raw hamburger heated up in the microwave-don't ask), because Mom and Dad insisted that he stay outside when I'm not home.

A few seconds later, he came swooping in. What's up? he asked as he perched on the back of my desk chair.

"Oh, nothing," I said, leaning against my desk, "except I asked Parker if he wanted me to show him around town."

Yeah? What did he say? Did he turn you down?

"No. he accepted. I'm supposed to meet him at the food court in the mall, in about two hours."

I'm coming with you.

"No. Anthony, you heard Tai. You're going to keep watch up in the sky for a while first, remember?"

Yeah…but I'm also supposed to play the role of a bird who's very attached to humans. Especially his current owner. Remember?

"I know. But that's what Tai said. If you have a problem, take it up with him, okay? Right now I have to try and finish my history assignment before I go meet Parker."

Where is Tai, then? I think I _would_ like to have a few words with him.

"He should be in his room. You know where it is."

I _should_. I've only been living in this house for what, a month or two? he said as he flew down the hall.

I tried to concentrate on my homework. After about 45 minutes, I gave up. I decided to leave for the mall. I shut my door, making sure that Tom was nowhere in sight and that Tai was busy arguing with Anthony, and vice versa.

I made sure my window was open. When I was finally sure it was safe, I pictured a peregrine in my mind. I pictured myself _becoming_ the peregrine.

The first change I noticed as I began to morph was my lips hardening into a beak. Then I began to shrink. Down, until I was the size of a peregrine, even though I was still mostly human. My arms became wings at the same time that my feathers sprouted all over. My legs became the legs of a peregrine, and my feet became the ripping, tearing talons of a bird of prey.

I was finished morphing. I hopped up on my windowsill, spread my wings, and flew toward the mall. If Tai or Anthony had found out what I was doing, they would've grounded me permanently. Which is why I took all those precautions in the first place. I may impulsive and always on the lookout for something to happen, but stupid is one thing I'm not.

I flew for maybe an hour, till I reached the convenient little hiding spot where I could demorph unseen. I landed and, after I'd taken a good look around to make sure no one was watching, I demorphed. Oh, yeah. Tai would definitely kill me if he found out.

Then I walked out onto the sidewalk and headed for the mall. I'd almost reached the entrance doors when I heard a thoughtspeak yell.

There you are! What did you think you were doing, Roma? What if someone had seen you? I swear, if you _ever_ pull something like this again, I'll…

I smiled. Anthony'd probably figured it out when he couldn't get in my room. Tai would've figured it out right after that. I wasn't surprised to see Anthony. I was a little surprised that Tai wasn't around, though.

"Roma!"

Spoke too soon. I sighed, but went inside the mall and headed for the food court, where I saw Parker waiting for me.

I'd hoped that Tai had given up and went home. No such luck.

"Roma!" He grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around. "What were you thinking?" he hissed.

"I was thinking that I'd save little time!"

"You were reckless, demorphing like that!"

"I made sure no one saw me!"

"What if a Controller had seen you? You could have put us all in danger!"

I heard someone walk up behind us.

"Hey, is he bothering you?" Parker asked.

"Yeah, but he's my brother. It's his job to bother me."

He relaxed a little. That's when I realized that he had probably watched the whole scene. He acted just how a normal person should.

I introduced them to each other. "Tai, this is Parker. Parker, this is my twin brother Tai."

"Hi," Parker said, extending his hand.

"Hey," Tai said, taking Parker's hand and giving it a brisk shake.

Now that _that_ was out of the way, I turned to Tai and said, "Didn't you say you were going over to Sam's to help her out at the Clinic?"

"Wha-Yeah, actually, now that you mention it, I nearly forgot! Gotta go!" he gave me a look that said clearly "We'll talk about this later", and left. I turned back to Parker and said, "Ready?"

"To see the town? You bet!"


End file.
